VIA Em-ITX board in racing car!

The VIA Em-ITX form factor is the embedded platform that I refer to as LEGO-inspired. You take the VIA EITX 3000 board and then, if you need to, you can plug in smaller boards to add more features. This project, however, proves that the EITX-3000 is just as valuable on its own.

Students from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at Lakehead University in Canada, built a race car to compete in the Formula SAE competition. 2010 was there second entry and second car, and their design is impressive.

The Lakehead University car can go from 0-100km/h (60 mph) in just four seconds! The 600CC engine was designed for a Honda motorcycle but they adapted it for use with the steel tube space frame that the team designed and constructed. The drive train is 6 speed short geared, chain drive, with a spool differential. It’s also decked out with suspension.

What’s particularly unique about the car is that there’s a little VIA PC inside all hooked up for engine adjustments, fuel monitoring, driver communication, GPS tracking and more.

The VIA EITX-3000 has two Gigabit Ethernet ports, two RS-232 and two RS-232/422/485 ports and six USB ports, giving ample room for all of the diverse connections the team needed.

Allan C. Pan who worked in the Electrical Team said that the VIA board was used for:

1) Real-time Engine control for both monitoring and on-fly perimeters adjustment
2) Real-time Air-Fuel Ratio for both monitoring and on-fly perimeters adjustment
3) Real-time GPS vehicle tracking over google earth and other map software
4) two Real-time Video and Audio feeds (one over see the the driver+road ahead and other one over see the suspension system)
5) two wireless networks, 1 for peer to peer connection using VPN, other one to connect other open/provided wifi netowrk for internet data access
6) WiMax network
7) dual Bluetooth PAN network, one for host system peripherals, the other one for data accessing
8) video streaming over LAN and WAN with compression

Many, many different crew members can be monitoring, tuning and communicating with the car and the driver, all at the same time, thanks to the VIA EITX-3000 board.

Earlier this month the team competed in the FSAE Michigan 2010 and they cam 39 out of 120 – not a bad showing at all!

You never know where you’ll find a VIA embedded board!

Logitec and VIA team up on NAS security

VIA's processors have had integrated security encryption at a hardware level for many years. The technology really is industry leading. Dell has taken advantage of it before in some cloud server products but it's good to see a consumer level product being launched that brings data encrytion to NAS.

Logitec will launch some NAS products that use VIA's in-built security, including AES disk encryption. VIA's Press Release highlights how closely Logitec and VIA's ACE-CNX team have been working together to build the new NAS designs.

“At Logitec we strive to employ the very latest security features across our range of data storage products,” said Tsugio Shimizu, General Manager, Business Solution Department, Logitec Corp. “Through working closely with the VIA ACE-CNX team we can now unlock the potential of VIA’s unique processor platforms, bringing seamless data encryption to our advanced NAS products.”

The new designs are being shown off at ESEC in Japan this week. There is no word on when they'll hit the market.

EPIA-M830: Getting to the specifics

VIA's EPIA range of motherboards are getting more and more targetted lately. Embedded computing is such a speciality field and VIA are pumping out Mini-ITX boards that meet the criteria for explicit uses, in this case POS, kiosk and POI applications.

"The VIA EPIA-M830 is designed to take the kiosk to this next phase, providing the backbone of devices that offer cashless purchasing and self service infrastructures in supermarkets and gas stations as well as more secure and interactive, multimedia-rich POI, lotto and gaming machines."

VIA are clearly thinking about the future here, although they must also be responding to demand. Somewhere out there are embedded developers dreaming up designs for embedded computers that will enhance our visit to the zoo, or streamline the process of getting a ticket for the train. I just hope they're a little bit smarter than the auto-checkout at Woolworths! - VIA

New VIPRO are HMI app ready

VIA, as you probably know, put their embedded motherboards into products, not only for sale under their own brands but also as an example to others to show what they can be used for. The VIPRO series of panel PCs have been around for a while now. I think I even saw one in a display at Computex with water gushing down it once!
This latest series are being pitched as future-proofed products. They are fanless and touchscreen - nothing new there, but they also have "an integrated two megapixel autofocus IP camera, microphone and speakers. These features make the VIA VIPRO series perfectly placed for next generation panel applications that include hospital patient terminals, home and building automation and advanced multimedia-rich security ecosystems."
I suppose that panel PCs with touch panel interfaces that control access to information and control over building functions like heating, lighting and security, are inevitable. I hadn't heard the term HMI or Human Machine Interface before this Press Release but a quick Google check shows that I am behind the times. HMI is a term used to define human and machine interface but according to Wikipedia it's "The user interface of a mechanical system, a vehicle or an industrial installation is sometimes referred to as the human-machine interface (HMI)."

VIA ARTiGO A110 intro video

Last week VIA announced a new ARTiGO kit, this time aimed at ... well, all sorts really, including PC enthusiasts who might like to build themselves a teeny tiny PC. The ARTiGO A110 kit is available for "retail" online sale in the US. I've been told that it will be available in Australia via the usual channels, by the end of the month.
There's nothing all that new being explained in this video, but it does give you a good look at the quality of the case - and it does look very solid and well finished.

Lian Li releases yet another Mini-ITX test bench

This is the third time in as many weeks that I've posted news about a new test bench from Lian Li that will make Mini-ITX development easier. The T7, as the marketing slogan goes, is "simple and stylish". Out of the three test benchs they've launched recently, this one looks to provide the most access.

Everything fits very neatly under the motherboard, leaving access to the motherboard, and a handle to move it around with ease. Very nice indeed.

Lian Li's Australian distributor is Mittoni.

VIA Nano-E to lead 64-bit revolution in embedded computing

Next week from April 27-29 VIA, and a whole lot of other players in the embedded computing market, will converge on Silicon Valley for the Embedded Systems Conference, an annual event that VIA has attended for many years now. This year they're getting in early with their announcements, launching five new SKUs of the VIA Nano E-Series processors.
As the Press Release points out, embedded computing will soon move over to 64-bit computing, with operating systems like Windows Embedded Standard 7 coming out soon, and VIA is ready to provide processors for that change, to "leverage a 64-bit software eco system that provides up to double the amount of data a CPU can process per clock cycle. This translates in to greater ease in manipulating large data sets and an overall performance boost compared to non-native x64 architectures."
In a very smart move, VIA is also taking care that the transition supports legacy software packages that are not 64-bit. The VIA VT virtualization technology will let such older programs run in virtual scenarios.